you could simply add some dark chocolate chips to the mix and make it awesome-er 
just thinking out loud here…
ooh yes. dark chocolate chips would indeed make it awesom-er. and maybe the odd coffee bean (they are bitter but i kind of nibble them very slowly. i do believe i’ve found my perfect training food. the dried fruit seems to give me a bit of a momentary kick and the nuts prevent my stomach from rumbling. i want to add mass, too, so don’t mind the extra calories.
skinny guy wasn’t short - but he wasn’t particularly tall either. maybe around my height 5"7. maybe an inch taller. i guess that is fairly short / average for a guy? not sure… he said he never learned how to squat he just always did. toddlers (all of them?) naturally squat but typically stop at some point once they realize that sitting is the ‘grown up’ thing to do. maybe it is just that it is harder for people to re-learn squatting when they are tall / have long femurs? i don’t know.
Biotest stuff turns out to be kinda hard to source in Aussie… will look into it a bit more, though (bet i can find it online). it would be nice to support this site since i’ve learned most everything i know about strength training from it.
will experiment with the vids next week (prefer to do that when the regular training guys aren’t around).
TRAINING (am after pm yesterday)
regular warm-up (getting too boring to post - eva / softball rolling, goblet squats 3-5 sets until movement is comfortable).
SNATCH (30 minutes max)
bar warm up takes about 15 minutes. no fair! i might experiment with giving myself 5 more minutes snatching so i can get in two more work sets. if they feel good i’ll keep things that way. if i start to get crappy from fatigue (and / or start bailing on core work again) i’ll go back to doing things this way.
25kg 3x3. last set feeling really smooth and easy so:
27.5kg 2x3. felt pretty good. had one miss with the 25kg (experimenting with starting the pull later and lost it forwards in the catch) but aside from that things seemed fine. need vids to see what i need to work on.
GHR 5x5 (assisted either by using a stick or some falling / pylo push-uping. i’m finding the stick allows me to clench my hammies / glutes really hard through the ROM which is harder with the falling / pushing aspect but the latter gives me a real calf burn / cramp / workout).
supersetted GHR with calf raises (unweighted - more about quality of toe stretch). these are starting to feel really very comfortable and effortless. that is progress!!! did 3 sets of these and then a kind of lunge stretch (aim is to really stretch my toes back from the ball of my foot). this latter one will take some work. still, this makes me one step closer to having the mobility to jerk!
needed to wait for people to get off the leg press so reversed the order on the last two:
BACK EXTENSION 3x10. 12.5kg. work. not horribly demanding, though. will try 15kg next time. I want to see a vid of Nikki doing behind the neck weighting before I try that!
snack came out now.
LEG PRESS 5x5 @ 60kg. legs high and wide. hands behind back to remind me to hold my lumbar arch as hard as i can. ALL THE WAY DOWN. the machine bottoms out when my knees are smooshed into my boobs lol. some work stretching my hip flexors (i start to lose my lumbar arch near the bottom / my ass comes up off the seat). this is a really nice movement for teaching me control of my pelvis through the range of motion (will have good carry-over for squats). took a fair bit of GRAW!!! to get the weight starting to move back up… i’m a little ashamed to admit that i kinda like the leg press!
feeling pretty good about today
bar warm-up… 5 minutes, at the most (not continuous). I like to do 2 sets x 2 or so minutes of just playing with the bar.
EYEAH!!! great session!
Aww, you found your training snack soulmate.
I wish I knew about you wanting a vid before I went to the gym. I’ll take a vid tomorrow.
No shame in liking the leg press, I love it so much. That sled can turn around the worst of training sessions for me.
well, the bar is a lot closer to my max than it is to yours, andy!
was supposed to have today off but wanted to do just a few snatches.
think the bar isn’t moving back the way it is supposed to, i still get that horizontal back thing going on / hips rising too fast, and the movement becomes jerky when the weights get heavy-ish (for me)… i dunno… things don’t quite feel / look right to me but not quite sure what to do about it.
I thought those looked really good! Nice and fast!!! To get started with hips lower you could try the snatch deadlifts like Andy suggested, they really helped me. You might want to post those in the Oly log for some experienced feedback if they didn’t feel right.
they didn’t look that bad to me alex - but as Deb mentionned you might get more constructive criticism in the oly forum.
My advice- go with the others’ advice
Everything looks good to me, but the Oly forum has some pretty experienced people happy to help.
Anyway, I came over to post the video.
It’s crappy because my back hurts and doing a weighed back exercise was not what my lumbar region had in mind =)
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
lol @ you watching videos… if I’m having a really shitty day at the gym, I’ll literally pull up youtube on my phone and start watching slow motion lifts, and go at it again, haha… this shit is so annoying sometimes, but I don’t see myself training any other way…
[/quote]
HAH! Its totally obsessive. I find myself going to sleep while imagining the bar patterns. HAH! UGH!!
Hey Lex! Training is looking great!
33.5 snatch is awesome! Jealous. And your snatch is improving all around. That’s great!
I thought the heavier snatches looked better actually. And i think you can see that you loose the lift when you try to muscle it up, which it looks like you have a tendency to do. What do you think? I might be totally wrong, but if you keep your arms loose and let the bar do its thing after the 2nd extension, you’ll be in a better position to drop under it and then lock it out. And you’re lucky b/c you pull with speed! the bar moves fast to your hips. Good stuff!
Def take the vids to the Oly forum. I’ll check there and see what folks say. I’m interested to hear!
Masch I do hundreds of snatches in my head every day. And every one of them is perfect
Alexus, hopefully CoachMcCauley or Koing drop by your oly thread to comment. I’m interested in the comments on the hips position because apparently it’s controversial.
Ooh. I’m glad you posted that Nikki. Our back extension machine is at this angle. I’ve seen (on tv) people do them with barbells behind their neck (back squat position) but other people place and remove the barbell - and a barbell can be gripped tightly into position. I can grab plates from the floor and clutch them to my chest but think I’d injure myself trying to hold them behind my neck :-/
thanks nimain hopefully people can enjoy watching them, anyway. and hopefully they will get prettier
i’m amazed at how much more respectable my lifts look now that i’ve got my training plates, heh. otherwise it would just be the metal plates that are on the bar with the bar on the reebok stepper / wooden blocks (training plates + womens bar is 20kg).
i think i’m not really getting the second extension properly, masch. as the weights get heavier i have a bit of a tendency to pause with the weight around my thigh and then chuck it up instead of it smoothly gaining momentum… but as the weights get heavier the bar doesn’t seem to arch in front of me quite the way it seems to with 25kg…
i like it how your coach makes you earn lifting from the floor, masch. from what you have said it sounds to me like he makes sure you got the second pull right before he lets you try and get into second position from the floor. it is really hard to do that. and really, what hope is there of finding it from the floor when you can’t do it from the hang? i’ve been trying to pull properly from the hang, but that doesn’t seem to be working for me either. sigh. just not quite sure on where the power position is, or something…
[quote]alexus wrote:
i think i’m not really getting the second extension properly, masch. as the weights get heavier i have a bit of a tendency to pause with the weight around my thigh and then chuck it up instead of it smoothly gaining momentum… but as the weights get heavier the bar doesn’t seem to arch in front of me quite the way it seems to with 25kg…
i like it how your coach makes you earn lifting from the floor, masch. from what you have said it sounds to me like he makes sure you got the second pull right before he lets you try and get into second position from the floor. it is really hard to do that. and really, what hope is there of finding it from the floor when you can’t do it from the hang? i’ve been trying to pull properly from the hang, but that doesn’t seem to be working for me either. sigh. just not quite sure on where the power position is, or something…
[/quote]
Wait, let me make sure I understand - you DON’T want the bar to arch in front of you, is that correct? Because that’s what I thought…r’uh roh.
Anyways, if that’s the case, that you want the bar to NOT arch, then i think that it makes sense that it doesn’t as the weight gets heavier. Which is why i said that the heavier snatches looked better than the 25kg. Ay. I hope i’m not misinforming.
Anyways, re: the pause at the hips. Have you ever tried doing some heavy shrugs? This might help build up some of that upper body power.
http://cathletics.com/exercises/exercise.php?exerciseID=92
As for pulling from the floor, actually, i just suck at it Alexus. HAHAHA! That’s why he doesn’t want me to do it. I have to work my way down to working off the floor…so sad!
btw, i’m reading the Oly thread re: your lift. Very interesting. Its also interesting to see how different people visualize the lift. As I read in Inkaddict’s log, don’t get analysis paralysis! All the feedback can be overwhelming.
This series of videos are interesting:
Also, Andy gave me this link of a slow motion snatch that I watch usually when I’m stuck (sweet soundtrack too! 
)
[quote]Mascherano wrote:
btw, i’m reading the Oly thread re: your lift. Very interesting. Its also interesting to see how different people visualize the lift. As I read in Inkaddict’s log, don’t get analysis paralysis! All the feedback can be overwhelming. [/quote]
Ha I know it’s terrible. When these technical lifts you need the analysis so it makes it even harder to not overdo it.
I’m aiming for the bar path to look like the one on the left / the one second to the left.
So… moving back into me from the floor (without ramming my knees - how???)
Then some swing out with the hip bump - but not too much. Apparently that is what the idea is of holding a stick about 10cm in front of the lifters face. More than 10cm swing forwards is too much.
Then a nice little J hook at the top where it moves back a little for the catch.
That is the idea, anyway (the ideal bar path seems to be universally accepted in the way that how to get the bar moving in that path does not). Probably because lever variations etc etc complicate things…
TRAINING:
warm-up eva / softball rolling. 1 set of slow and controlled goblet squats 10kg.
Snatch.
Aim for today: RAWR!!! Instead of slow from the floor and fast with the hip drive trying fast from the floor and fastest hip drive.
warm-up with bar and 20kg.
25kg triple. lost second one back (fell hard on my ass) and third one forwards. bar path seems to arch with the 25kg if i pull it too fast.
27.5kg triple. felt alright, i guess.
30kg triple. 2 sets of these. didn’t know i had that in me.
32.5kg 2 singles. catching a bit high because i’m not totally confident about the bar path.
next time: 30kg is my new weight for work sets. aiming to get these moving fast.
Front Squats 5x5.
warm-up 20kg 1x5, 25kg 1x5
30kg 5x5.
form felt good and movement felt comfortable. weights felt… well, squats never feel ‘easy’ but these felt pretty close. 32.5kg for all sets next week.
Abs: 15kg planks 60 seconds x3.
try 20kg next time.
was meant to do chin-ups today but didn’t. thats ok. very happy about my snatches today.